Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Stunted Golf Course Pond

My friend and I want to take a half acre stunted golf course pond and make it a nice bass/bluegill fishery. Heres our plans:
1. Add structure, wood, pallets, rocks,and add native plants
2. Raise Fathead Minnows in 100g rubbermaid tubs.
3. Raise Bluegill in 100g rubbermaid tubs
4. Stock Bass

The pond is about 1/2 an acre and has just stunted RES and mosquito fish. Its a short but wide pond with very little cover and its relatively shallow with a sandy bottom. My question is, would it be possible to raise enough fatties and bluegill to sustain some bass? I figure it will take 2,000 FHM to start off with the RES already in there they will take a good chunk out of them. Then after I stock the FHM add Bluegill several months later then add bass several months later.

I am betting they are not stunted RES... Stunted GSF perhaps, but not RES. See if you can take a photos of these stunted sunfish in question and post on here for a positive ID. Raising FHM and BG in 100 gallon tubs will be a trick and a lot of work. Not sure it will be worth the effort for what you are trying to do. I would figure out what species of sunfish you have for sure. Then stock larger, 5"+ CNBG and then stock 6"+ bass. I'd stock 30 bass and 200 CNBG.

yes, thats what I'm wondering right now. Would it be worth it to stock a golfcourse pond to fish. In the future in will be connected to a very large Lake McIntosh, so potential monster bass/BG in the lake? Possibly. But that will be in 5 or so years. I was inspired by Brune Condello's thread shown below.
http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=1281&Number=13221#Post13221
Raising 400 fish at 4-5" in a 150g rubbermaid tub fascinated me. So in ideal conditions I COULD have anywhere from 2,000+ minnows in 1 tub. So 2 tubs thats like 4,000 minnows and after stocking like 10,000 FHM over several months I will take all the minnows out of 1 tub and convert that tub to raise 100 CNBG. Then rase another batch of CNBG and then conver that tub to raise more FHM or another sought after baitfish.

Sound like a Decent plan?

One of the things that Bruce has going for him is the fantastic water quality of his well water. I don't know if you would see FHM spawning in the tank at high fish densities.

FHM are really easy to spawn and raise in tanks. One would need to have separate spawning tanks and incubator tanks.

I used 11 gallon pvc totes that cost about 16.00 each with a polypropylene sheet as a substrate that I scuffed up a bit with a grinder. The eggs are sticky, but they cling better to a rough surface.

The newly hatched will, within a few days, readily feed on goldfish flakes. I crumbled these up and sprinkled them in. They only eat food in the water column at this stage. After a few weeks I would switch to a typical pond food pellet that was crushed. They did not like it dry so I pre moistened it, and all was well. Talk about a mini feeding frenzy. They will not eat anything off the bottom of the tank, so that is something to consider.

In about ten weeks they will be a good 1.5" plus. Direct well water in a flow through would be too cold. Upper 60's to lower 70's would be best. They can also handle crowding conditions because they are a schooling fish and love company. Safety in numbers.

If you had a D+ to C- setup, maybe 8 to 10 thousand 1.5 inchers at 2%/body weight feed per day in 150 gallons, but you need to set it up right.

Just don't let this happen:

Maybe I'm missing something here but regardless of the species of sunfish why would you want to add fish to a pond that has too many? Predator fish auch as bass I can see, but adding more fish to stunted body of water makes no sense to me.

There are stunted Bluegill(been told by friends) and looked like RES or Green Sunfish. That was just a glimpse while I was fishing. The pond looked empty when I first walked up to it, I honestly though there was no fish in it. Didnt even see turtles. Then I saw some 3-4" sunfish chasing the lure desperately but I did not see many, maybe 2-5 sunfish in 5 minutes of fishing.